Friday, 23 September 2016

Back in August we alerted our readers to an
exhibition of posters in Liverpool recreated by the man who did the originals. During International Beatleweek we visited the exhibit and it was absolutely wonderful!

In the 1960's Tony Booth was the original artist for The Beatles and Brian Epstein where he produced hundreds of the original gig posters and signs round Liverpool during the Merseybeat era.

At the time when the gigs were over, they would be ripped down off the walls and replaced with the next one for the next week. No one at the time realized that they were valuable memorabilia. Only one original has miraculously survived.

Lucky for us, the artist, Tony Booth, has painstakingly recreated each and every hand painted poster all over again. These hand painted posters are available for sale but also available are signed prints made from the hand painted versions.

At the exhibit it was fascinating wandering around and reading each poster and admiring the skill and precision of Mr. Booth's work. We also watched a video which you can watch below.

The exhibit will end this month but the posters can still be viewed and purchased from his website. Please have a look.

As the 50th anniversary of Magical Mystery Tour is next year, we are starting to learn about different projects in the works connected with the film.

Fifty years ago Simon Mitchell and his sister had the amazing good fortune to be extras in the film as children. Fast forward half a century and the Magical Mystery Tour is still part of his life. Two years ago he purchased a coach - a Bedford VAL Plaxton Panorama. The Bedford
VAL was a coach built during the 1960s in the U.K. with two steerable
front axles which was rare at the time.

Simon, a member of the Hannover Beatles Fan Club, purchased this coach with help from friends with a vision in mind. He had already begun an collection of Magical Mystery Tour memorabilia with the aim of creating a museum that would help children with cancer. He envisioned his museum including a duplicate Magical Mystery Tour bus.

With his bus purchased he now began the process to repair it and transform it into a brand new Magical Mystery Tour bus.

Simon now lives in Germany so the bus is currently near Hamlin in Germany awaiting to be finished.

With the 50th anniversary fast approaching, Simon wants to start putting the bus to work raising money for children with cancer. He plans to recreate the route and re-drive the original MMT route across southern England from London to Newquay, with members of the press, to help gather donations for children with cancer.

To make this plan a reality, Simon needs to get the restoration of the bus completed and it also needs to be inspected by the German TÜV to be allowed on the roads.

Simon is asking us to help spread the word about his project to make it a reality in time for the anniversary. He says "It‘s not
about me, its about children who need our help. Any amount given will be
warmly accepted and will be a huge help with my project. One may
donate with or without ones name being mentioned. Thank you."

The British Beatles Fan Club is cooking up a new project for our members and it will only work with your help.

It has been a big year for Beatles events. Not only have Paul and Ringo both been touring but many of our members have attended festivals, tribute concerts, stage productions and film premieres all over the world.

We know you took pictures of you and your friends throughout the year and we thought it would be a fab idea to gather these photos together into a BBFC calendar for 2017.

This will be a two step effort:

Part 1: We need to collect enough photos. So start sending them in today. Email them to website@britishbeatlesfanclub.co.uk with the title "Calendar Photos".

Part 2: Assuming we receive enough photo contributions, we will advertise for calendar pre-orders. We will need a minimum number of orders to keep the price down and if we get enough pre-orders, we will produce the calendar filled with your photos of you and your fellow BBFC members.

Saturday, 17 September 2016

This fifth-year of the Beatles-themed Ticket to Write play festival will feature a drama about the “Fifth Beatle” Pete Best.

The play, “Drums Along The Mersey”, is an affectionate look at the part Pete’s mother Mona played as the Godmother of Merseybeat.

It is partnered with “Shake It Up Baby” a powerful yet moving comedy about Beatles-fanatic Bev who gets more than she bargained or when she seeks romance on the internet.

The event is being staged at Unity Theatre, Liverpool, on September 23 and 24.

“We have two very different stories but each celebrates The Beatles and their music in its own way,” says producer Jamie Gaskin.

“Shake It Up Baby” author Suzan Holder is a writer, television and theatre producer and director.
She trained as a newspaper journalist before moving into TV. She was Series Producer of ITV’s daytime show “Loose Women”. Suzan has worked as a theatre producer for Brendan O’Carroll, creator and star of BBC TV comedy “Mrs Brown’s Boys”.

Suzan has own drama company, Dramarama, and has taught theatre skills to youngsters aged 7 -18 years and staged many musical theatre productions. She has written several original stage scripts and her work has been performed worldwide.

Peter Harrison, writer of “Drums Along The Mersey”, hails from Liverpool. He is a retired journalist who worked first in newspapers and then with BBC radio and television in Manchester.
He has written talks and stories for BBC Radio 4 and is the author of many plays both for BBC local radio and the stage. The most recent, “Liverpool-Dieppe, One-Way”, was transmitted on Radio Merseyside to mark the Battle of The Atlantic celebrations in 2013.

Peter’s play “The Circus on Lime Street”, about the notorious Liverpool case known as the Cameo Cinema Murders, was staged in successive years in the preserved Victorian courtroom in St George’s Hall, Liverpool, where George Kelly, victim of a sinister police conspiracy, was convicted and later hanged for the crime, being posthumously pardoned over 50 years later.

Thursday, 8 September 2016

John Lennon' s historic mosaic The Psychedelic Eye from his Weybridge home Kenwood [1963 -1969] comes to The V&A's major headlining exhibition 'You Say You Want A Revolution' : Records and Rebels 1966 - 1970.
Opening London on the 10th September 2016 running through to 26th February 2017 before going off to other world cities.
Visit this mesmerising fascinating and historic and unique item and view it in person, this is a rare and limited opportunity. The exhibit includes other Beatles items as well so it is well worth a visit.

Excitement is building as the premiere date approaches. The film will be screened around the world at selected venues. We've also learned that a DVD version will be released in November in case you don't live near one of the venues.

Find out where you can watch at the film's website. Just change to your country in the top right corner of the site.

We had a chance for a preview look yesterday. This post below is about what we saw but warning, it has spoilers.

Friday, 2 September 2016

This fifth-year of the Beatles-themed Ticket to Write play festival will feature a drama about the “Fifth Beatle” Pete Best.

The play, “Drums Along The Mersey”, is an affectionate look at the part Pete’s mother Mona played as the Godmother of Merseybeat.

It is partnered with “Shake It Up Baby” a powerful yet moving comedy about Beatles-fanatic Bev who gets more than she bargained or when she seeks romance on the internet.

The event is being staged at Unity Theatre, Liverpool, on September 23 and 24.

“We have two very different stories but each celebrates The Beatles and their music in its own way,”says producer Jamie Gaskin.

​

“Shake It Up Baby” author Suzan Holder is a writer, television and theatre producer and director.

She trained as a newspaper journalist before moving into TV. She was Series Producer of ITV’s daytime show “Loose Women”. Suzan has worked as a theatre producer for Brendan O’Carroll, creator and star of BBC TV comedy “Mrs Brown’s Boys”.

Suzan has own drama company, Dramarama, and has taught theatre skills to youngsters aged 7 -18 years and staged many musical theatre productions. She has written several original stage scripts and her work has been performed worldwide.

Peter Harrison, writer of “Drums Along The Mersey”, hails from Liverpool. He is a retired journalist who worked first in newspapers and then with BBC radio and television in Manchester.

He has written talks and stories for BBC Radio 4 and is the author of many plays both for BBC local radio and the stage. The most recent, “Liverpool-Dieppe, One-Way”,was transmitted on Radio Merseyside to mark the Battle of The Atlantic celebrations in 2013.

Peter’s play“The Circus on Lime Street”, about the notorious Liverpool case known as the Cameo Cinema Murders, was staged in successive years in the preserved Victorian courtroom in St George’s Hall, Liverpool, where George Kelly, victim of a sinister police conspiracy, was convicted and later hanged for the crime, being posthumously pardoned over 50 years later.

Two graduates of Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts are directing the plays. Artistic Director Francesca Goodridge is working in particular on “Shake It Up Baby”.

In June she directed 60s' musical “Shout! The Mod Musical”for Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre.She is currently a Trainee Director at The Other Room, Cardiff, where she is learning her craft from some of the top theatre directors. She has worked as an actress, singer and director. She is lead singer of a South Wales based function band The Poptarts.

Bringing “Drums Along The Mersey” to the stage is Sarah Gallegos, an American, who directed “Eurydice” withLIPAand “Melancholy Play”in collaboration with the LIPA ISB, both of these were by Sarah Ruhl.

Sarah also co-directed “Julius Caesar” with the Experimental Theatre Ensemble in California.